Polish president: What Ukrainian nationalists did in Volhynia is genocide

What happened in Volhynia was not an episode of the war but simply an ethnic cleansing, said the president of Poland Andrzej Duda during events dedicated to the anniversary of the massacres in Volhynia, held in Ukraine on the first Sunday of July, informs Polska Agencja Prasowa on July 8.

In the course of his speech at the cemetery where the remains of the Volhynia massacre victims are buried, Duda noted that there had been no war between Ukraine and Poland in 1942, 1943, and 1944, and those killed were not soldiers but ordinary peasants. “It is believed that approximately 100 thousand Poles – not soldiers but common people, farmers who work the land, whole families, women, children, seniors”, underlined the Polish president. “That was simply an ethnic cleansing aimed at driving the Poles away from the lands which later were controlled by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN)* ”, stated Duda.

Duda also emphasized that the contemporary relations between Poland and Ukraine should be based on the principles of historical truth, not on revenge, and that he came to Ukraine not “to tell off, but to pray”.

The massacre in Volhynia is a massive killing of Polish civilians by the Ukrainian nationalists including those composing the Ukrainian Insurgent Army-Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (UPA-OUN(B)) [organization banned in Russia] that reached its peak in 1943. According to the estimations of different historians, from 30-40 to 80-100 thousand people died during the ethnic cleansings in Volhynia. The Polish Sejm qualifies the massacres in Volhynia as an act of genocide.